DAMMIT, HARPER!!!! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BREAK UP WITH YOUR ROOMMATE FOR YOU???

- okay. Time to take some deep breaths and assess all her memories about Abigail.

Abigail is pretty shy, and spends a lot of time in the arts building, using the sewing machines. Mostly for her own clothing, which is skillfully elaborate in its frilliness, but also she has a side hustle doing commissions, mostly for the theater kids but not exclusively; several of the more tasteful of the newer items in Harper's wardrobe came from her. 

Harper mostly decided to seduce her because when her life turned into a game about sleeping with people, the person she had been sleeping adjacent to for the past several months seemed like an obvious choice. 

Abigail fairly blossomed under even a little positive attention, initiating most of their trysts after the first one, but never quite reaching a level of confidence high enough to actually initiate a conversation about Feelings. 

It's pretty obvious if you're not Harper that Abigail had moved into a Pining stage. 

And this is enough to yandere her if Bella fucks it up? Wow. - is the little black dress one of Abigail's.

It sure is!

What is the least stupid outfit that is not one of Abigail's.

This dark green dress that's pretty much skintight but has, like, actual sleeves, and the skirt is tight enough that it's not hard not to flash someone if she's careful? 

She's going to stick with the little black dress for the moment and assess Harper's finances.

Harper has been acquiring irregular chunks of money from the Erogame over the past week and spending, like, some of it, on Erogame-related stuff, but most of it has been going to pay off her student loans. 

But Bella can go to a thrift store or something? - can she drive, does she have a car, are the buses any good around here -

She doesn't have a car, and the buses are sort of meh, but the subway is fine and there's a subway card in her wallet. She has a couple hundred dollars of cash in there for Emergency Ero purposes, which should be fine for a thrift store. 

Okay. She is going to go to a Goodwill or something and get some normal damn outfits that were not made by a girl she is about to dump. (Does she know when to expect Abigail home?)

Probably sometime late-ish in the evening, around eleven or so. 

The most convenient thrift store is a Thrifty Shopper, which offers further discounts on items whose tags are The Colors Of The Day. 

Somehow, all such items that would fit Isabella are just that liiiiiittle bit sexier than the ones that aren't so discounted. 

Par for the course! But she can be sexy in jeans that have artful tears up a bit higher than most, or a T-shirt with the neck ripped up so it's falling off at least one shoulder at all times, or shorts that say SMARTASS on the butt, or in a cap-sleeve that is basically normal except for having a boob window, which is stupid but is at least not going to make it extra awkward to dump Abigail.

Abigail is embroidering something quietly in their room when Bella returns. 

Bella's wearing the jeans and the boob window shirt home.

"- hi," she says.

She looks up and smiles. "Hi, Bella!"

"- hey."

Bella sits down heavily on her bed. "You ever - wake up one morning feeling like a completely different person?"

She puts her embroidery in her lap, tips her head back, and thinks. 

"Not...exactly? I've realized abruptly that I had changed a lot, but the change happened over a period of years and the realization was in the middle of something else." 

"Well. I woke up feeling like a completely different person. It's probably even weirder than you'd imagine from that description. I kind of want to rethink my... entire... life. I'm only probably not going to drop out of school in the next month, I prefer pants now, that kind of thing."

"Oh. Huh. --Are you, uh, okay?" 

She asks this in a tone of someone who was familiar with Harper, who was not, objectively, okay. 

"Honestly, I think I'll be better off than I was before. I'm just going to have a weird week or two. Adjusting."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"It'd help a lot if you, uh, responded really well to the fact that I think I wanna stop sleeping with literally everyone I have been sleeping with."

She opens her mouth. 

She closes her mouth. 

She says, "That's...fair. Do you, uh, want a platonic hug?" 

"Yeah. I'd like that."